Kristen Stewart maintains that her nerves never went away while shooting "On the Road," an adaptation of the Jack Kerouac novel that readers have been obsessed with — and highly protective of — since its 1957 publication.Nervous she may have been, but co-star Amy Adams — a two-time Oscar nominee — came away from the project seriously impressed by her fellow actor.

"She's awesome," Adams said of KStew. "I knew she had chops. I've seen her since 'Panic Room.' I thought she was fantastic. I feel like she's grown up onscreen. She was great in 'Into the Wild.' The girl's got some chops."

Like Stewart, who dubbed the small-scale production "wild," Adams reveled in the highly creative experience that director Walter Salles ("The Motorcycle Diaries") created on set. "We had a lot of time with each other and a lot of play, a lot of freedom," she explained.

Adams plays Jane, the drug-addicted wife of Old Bull Lee (Viggo Mortensen), a character said to be based on author William S. Burroughs. "On the Road" was her first project after giving birth to her daughter in May, and she thrust herself into the role.

"The character I played required me to be in such a haze," she explained. "My experience is very tactile — very damp and very hot. I was so in that character."

Adams credits Salles with allowing her to dive so deeply into the character and for letting the cast "play" so openly both in front of the camera and when shooting would wrap each day. Since most of her scenes are with Mortensen, it was during production downtime that she got to know Stewart.